


Wet Dreams

by SciFiDVM



Series: In Your Dreams [5]
Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Pottsboro to Willoughby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 05:24:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17440778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SciFiDVM/pseuds/SciFiDVM
Summary: The last bit of Charlie and Monroe's trip from Pottsboro to Willoughby. As they realize what trouble her family is in and start dealing with Patriots, Charlie realizes that maybe Monroe's assertion that she's turning out just like him might not be such a bad thing after all.





	Wet Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Finally finished this one... and with it, my whole Pottsboro to Willoughby head canon. Trying to imagine how these two went from hatefully glaring at each other across the empty swimming pool to how they were when they showed up at Miles's doorstep has always been one of my favorite parts of Revolution. And of course, why did they both look so damn guilty when Charlie was denying to Miles that she would ever let Monroe touch her...

After the morning’s deep conversation, Charlie and Monroe had traveled in near silence for the rest of the day. He was busy trying to overcome his hangover, and her mind was busy trying to integrate the new bombshell of information about her former arch nemesis into her preconceived notions about him in a way that didn’t force her to completely change the way she saw him. Neither was succeeding at their task.

It was late in the afternoon when the rain started to fall. They’d been watching the storm slowly crawl up from the horizon and drift toward them most of the day. Now it was a couple hours before nightfall and the sky had opened up, spilling enormous drops down on them in sheets. Unfortunately, they were in the wide open stretch of nothingness that ran from Waco to Willoughby. There was not a building, copse of trees, or anything that could shelter them as far as they could see along the horizon.

With no better option, they continued on through the driving rain. Around dusk, the visibility was poor and the footing along the dirt road was becoming muddy and hazardous. The horses were appropriately perturbed by the situation, and each not-so-far-off clap of thunder sent the more sensitive left horse into a state of near panic.

“We need to get off the road.” Charlie suggested. She had tolerated the downpour stoically to this point.

“And where do you suggest we go?” Monroe asked gruffly. 

Charlie understood his grumpy concern. It wasn’t the rain itself, as much as it was the delay it would cause and what they both knew would follow the rain. It was late October and it had been uncharacteristically hot and humid right up until this storm had broken. That meant that this was going to be one of those fall storms that preceded a cold front. Charlie had hoped that they would reach their destination before this happened. They didn’t have the cold weather supplies to fare well through windy nights on the plains, and nobody in Waco had been willing to part with any. The next few days were about to become even more unpleasant.

“I don’t know, but we can’t keep going on like this.” As if to prove her point, as she said it thunder clapped loudly overhead, and the less tractable horse spooked and lost its footing in the mud. It was a rough stumble, but the creature was able to right itself.

Monroe growled audibly. If they lost a horse or broke something on the wagon they would be even more screwed. However, camping near a road in the wide open was also bound to yield bad results.

“There.” Charlie pointed at the remnants of a building up ahead about a half mile and off to their right.

The partial edifice would barely conceal the wagon from view and likely wouldn’t provide any significant protection from the elements. “It’ll have to do.” He grumbled.

When they finally approached the structure, they found that it was nothing more than two adjoining walls from a long ago burnt out hay barn. It would hide them from sight, but there was no roof to shelter them from the rain or allow them to build a fire.

They worked together to untie the horses and set them up nearby to graze before both returning to the wagon. They rearranged supplies in the enclosed back section of the wagon until there was enough room for both of them to huddle inside, out of the rain. They were both completely soaked through and the air was getting colder by the minute. Even if they had found somewhere dry enough to start a fire, they couldn’t risk it. They hadn’t put nearly enough distance between them and the troop of soldiers that they’d slaughtered the previous night. Even a small camp fire would have been a giant beacon for anyone pursuing them.

She knew what had to come next, and was sure he did too. Might as well just get it over with. “We need to get into dry clothes. I think there are some in one of these duffles.” She rummaged through some of the bounty hunters’ things in a bag at the front of the wagon. The wagon’s former owners obviously hadn’t been big on hygiene, and only had one spare set of clothes each. Fortunately, they seemed rather clean. “Here.” She flung a t shirt and a pair of jeans at his head. “Turn around.”

She turned away from him and started to pull her sodden tank top over her head. He turned away instantly and hesitantly began pulling off his own wet clothes. She finished disrobing and pulling on the too big but dry t-shirt and jeans quickly. She momentarily contemplated being mature, but curiosity got the better of her and she twisted her head around just in time to see Monroe pulling up his new jeans over his bare ass. She turned back quickly and felt her face flush. Well. Damn. It would probably be a few days before she could look at him without that image flashing into her mind.

“Uh, Charlotte, are you… decent?” He asked a few seconds after she heard a zipper rise.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

They both tentatively turned back toward each other. Now it was awkward. It had been an emotionally tiring day, and there was nothing left to do but sit around and stare at each other.

“Anything we can eat without a fire?” He asked, clearly trying to create some kind of distraction.

“There’s some jerky back there. Probably venison.” She answered and pointed toward a crate stacked behind him.

They both focused on going about their normal nightly routine and the awkward tension began to dissipate. There wasn’t much room in the wagon, but they tried to work around each other and forget about the worsening chill permeating the air. Unfortunately, there was no ample supply of blankets or bedding in the stolen wagon. Monroe sat against the back door with a threadbare cotton blanket draped over his shoulders, and Charlie sat to the side with their one sleeping bag pulled up around her legs as they both picked at the dried deer meat and took turns eating preserved peaches from a can. They were both cold and tired, and their appetites reflected it. Charlie hadn’t eaten much more than a few mouthfuls before she started yawning.

“I’ll take first watch.” He offered unnecessarily. He always took first watch these days.

“Ok.” She yawned again and let herself slide further down into the sleeping bag. She started the night out in a semi reclined pose, leaning partially against the side of the wagon, with the sleeping bag pulled up to her chin.

There really wasn’t much for Monroe to watch outside the wagon through the small openings that passed for windows. The rain was still coming down hard, and now a cold wind was whipping it around. Occasionally a flash of lightning would illuminate the open space around them, and confirm that there was nobody out there as far as they could see to the horizon in each direction. 

Charlie was miserable. Just when she would start to drift off, the booming thunder would startle her out of her sleep. She had already tried changing her sleeping position a couple times trying to get more comfortable and conserve more warmth. She ended up lying on her side, curled up as deeply into the sleeping bag as she could. Despite her best efforts, she was starting to shiver violently.

That was when Monroe cautiously slid over to the wall next to her. “Look, I know you’re not gonna like this, but hypothermia is a real...”

“Yeah. Fine. Whatever.” Charlie’s teeth chattered as she barely huffed out the words and unzipped the sleeping bag without hesitation. “Get in.”

Monroe gave her a surprised look for a moment before crawling into the bag with her. She had rolled to face away from him, and he melded his body around her back before zipping up the bag and pulling his blanket over their heads and the top part of the sleeping bag like a hood. The combined body heat in the confined space of the poorly insulated sleeping bag wasn’t enough to be considered comfortable by any means, but it was enough to stop the shivering spasms from racking Charlie’s small frame.

“I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting you to be so pragmatic about this.” Monroe said in an almost whispered tone, since his mouth was right next to her ear.

“I don’t really feel like freezing to death out of spite.” She answered bluntly.

“That’s a novel sentiment to hear coming from a Matheson.” He chuckled.

His laughter made his chest hum and rub against her back. Charlie focused on the physical warmth his presence provided, and attempted to ignore the fact that some sick part of her was enjoying the intimate contact with the very masculine body pressed up against her. She’d heard that people got crazy when they were freezing to death. She was just going to chalk it up to that.

They both shifted around a bit, trying to get comfortable in the restrictive confines of the sleeping bag intended for only a single person. Trying to make a little more room, Monroe draped his arm around her waist. 

She quickly shoved the arm off. “Pragmatism’s only gonna get you so far.” 

“There’s no room in here.” He had nowhere else to put the arm, so he put it right back.

“Not a chance.” She huffed and shoved his arm back again.

“Get over yourself.” He grumbled and put the arm back over her side.

“Move it or lose it, Monroe.”  
He felt the cold tip of a steel blade tap his forearm. With a protracted sigh, he pulled his arm back and left it awkwardly hanging at his side. 

They stopped talking at that point. The moderate hypothermia had sapped their energy, and now that they were warming up, the exhaustion was overwhelming. It wasn’t long before they were both asleep.

…….

  
Charlie dreamt vividly that night. 

_At first, it was her and Miles running through the woods, fighting with the rebels. Then Nora was there, and Aaron. It wasn’t any particular battle they had actually fought against the Militia, just a generic amalgamation of her time spent fleeing through scrubby forests dodging rifle fire. As the group all joined up to start planning their counter attack, Charlie paid no particular attention to the extra member of their team. There was nothing extraordinary about the inclusion of Miles’s friend, Bass, in their rebel group. He was just as natural a part of the team as Nora. Without any segue, Charlie was in the midst of a bloody battle. She, Miles, and Bass were gunning down Militia members with impressive accuracy. And they were Monroe Militia members, but looking at them showed them to be wearing tan fatigues with American flag patches instead of dark colored uniforms with the encircled M logo. This realization started to nag at Charlie’s subconscious. It was a discrepancy that her mind registered but couldn’t put into context, what Aaron would have called “a glitch in the Matrix”. The battle around her suddenly stilled, or was over – it didn’t really matter – Charlie looked at her two comrades in their typical grungy rebel clothes as they continued to silently fire at foes she couldn’t see. She looked down at a dead adversary on the ground at her feet. Her eyes focused on the American flag patch on his sleeve. Then her peripheral vision caught a glimpse of dark colored and neatly pressed fabric. She shifted her gaze to look at herself, and found that she was wearing a crisp, spotlessly clean Monroe Militia general’s dark green uniform. Looking back to Miles and Bass, she now found them to be wearing their own Monroe Militia commander’s uniforms. Her gaze was now quickly drawn back to the body at her feet. It was no longer a khaki clad soldier, but Nora’s dead body. Where the American flag patch had been, now the similar tattoo on her shoulder blade was exposed. Suddenly Monroe’s hand was on Charlie’s shoulder and it startled her. His presence now seemed foreign and disturbing, no longer familiar and trusted. He looked down on her and, in a funereal tone, he lamented, “At least she died a Patriot.”_

Charlie startled back into consciousness. Her eyes shot open and she focused on the frost crystals lining the edge of the wagon’s small window slits as she calmed her rapid breathing. That had been one weird dream. She was sure that it had been laden with symbolism and deeper meaning. That guy, Freud, that Aaron talked about would have probably had a field day analyzing it. She wasn’t willing to read that much into it. Basically, she was anxious about meeting back up with her family, and whether or not Monroe’s presence would be accepted. And then they’d be fighting again, against an enemy they knew little about except that they claimed to be Americans. That was it. Her brain had just used a little creative license in how it illustrated the major worries currently on her mind.

As she switched her focus from the dream back to her current reality, she registered the body not just touching, but contoured around her. There was no moment of confusion or lack of recognition of who she was sharing a sleeping bag with. Even in her sleep she had not forgotten her proximity to Monroe. His arm had snuck back around her once she’d surrendered her consciousness. He was plastered to her, holding her body close to his. She wanted to shove him away, to bolt from the sleeping bag, but honestly, it was warm the way they were lying. Her pragmatism about the situation had gotten them through the night. If she continued to let it outweigh her emotions, she could maybe even get another hour of relatively comfortable sleep. Then she felt his muscles tense and shiver behind her. His breathing got faster and more shallow. By the time he whimpered in her ear, Charlie was worried. He’d managed to nearly kill her in his sleep when she’d just touched his shoulder during one of his nightmares. She did not want to see how much damage he could inflict on her in the confined space of the sleeping bag if he got startled awake. She held deathly still and was both surprised and relieved as she heard his whimpering quiet and felt his muscles relax. He gave a few deep breaths that turned into an almost contented sounding sigh. Then his grip around her tightened, but in a way that was more comforting than threatening. His breathing evened out and he seemed to return to his peaceful slumbering.

Apparently alcohol wasn’t the only thing that kept his subconscious demons at bay. Charlie’s brain started to trail off in a dozen directions at once as it processed this new information. Then it all clicked. Why he had saved her from that bar, why he wanted to find Miles, why he had so willingly opened up to her. He was lonely. And she had a feeling that this hadn’t just started when the bombs had dropped and he lost his country. She wanted to laugh at the irony of one of the formerly most import men in the world feeling this way, but deep down she couldn’t find any humor in someone else feeling as alone as she did most of the time. She sighed, the warm exhalation of breath becoming a hazy mist in the cold morning air, and relaxed into Monroe’s unconscious embrace. He was right. They were the same. For the first time, that seemed like maybe it wasn’t so terrible. 

Charlie didn’t realize she had fallen asleep again until she was abruptly awoken by a blast of cold air hitting her back. She hissed at the sudden temperature change.

“Sorry.” Monroe mumbled as he zipped the sleeping bag back up around her and stood. “Sun’ll be coming up soon. Gonna check a perimeter before we get up and start moving around and draw attention.”

“Hold on.” Charlie yawned. “I’ll help.” She steeled herself for the stinging cold she knew was about to assail her tired body and opened the sleeping bag.  
He almost managed to hide his sidelong look of surprise at her willingness to cooperate.

The night’s rain had frozen to the grass around the wagon, causing quiet crunching sounds with each of their steps as they tried to covertly investigate their campsite. Monroe cringed slightly as each footfall shattered the thin layer of ice coating each blade of grass and announced their location.

Reading his tension, Charlie whispered, “At least no one can sneak up on us either with the ground like this.”

Monroe shrugged an agreement, and a little bit of the tension he was carrying left his frame.

Finding nothing amiss around their camp site, the pair set to work readying the horses and relocating the items in the back of the wagon for travel. They could have probably risked a small cook fire since they would be leaving the area soon, but every possible fuel source round them was too wet and frozen to burn. Another cold can of peaches was all they managed for breakfast. They were on their way as soon as the sun started to rise.

…..

The morning kept a crisp chill in the air, but as the sun began to shine down on them, the biting cold dissipated. It turned into a beautiful Fall day, and the traveling was easy at first. They had only been on the road half the day before they spotted signs of trouble. They were about forty-five miles from Willoughby at that point, and started seeing what looked like refugees heading in the opposite direction from them. Charlie’s friendly inquiries found that they were fleeing because of increased war clan activity in the area. This was weird, because the Plains war clans rarely ventured into Texas territory at all, and if they did, it was near the border. Exactly where they had just come from and had encountered zero war clan activity. How, and why, did some clan leapfrog over their route and end up all the way in south central Texas without leaving any trail? Monroe and Charlie didn’t think it was a coincidence that this aberrant stealthy ninja war clan was out of the blue attacking around Willoughby, the town with the big Patriot marker on their map. Large garrisons of heavily armed military personnel didn’t usually attract the feral and minimally trained war clans as targets, even when they were conveniently located. This screamed set up.

By early afternoon they were starting to see soldiers in khaki uniforms out on the roads herding the refugees away from certain areas.

“How much you wanna bet they got something seriously no good going down out in those woods?” Monroe whispered to her as they drove past a group of soldiers that eyed them suspiciously.

“I know one way to find out.” Charlie grinned darkly.  
Monroe returned the smile.

They drove on ahead for a few more miles. Once they were out of the busiest traffic but still within a perimeter that should be regularly patrolled if there was a secret base near by, they pulled the wagon off onto a side street, then into a small clearing surrounded by trees. They let the horses rest for a minute and started eating lunch themselves. Within half an hour they heard signs of an approaching patrol.

It was only two guys. One was about Monroe’s height, but double his width with a paunchy belly. The other was a young, skinny kid, only an inch or two taller than Charlie. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old. The soldiers spotted the wagon and approached it directly to investigate. Charlie and Monroe exchanged a wordless glance, then materialized out of the trees behind the soldiers, snuck up behind them, and took them down before they even realized that they had been ambushed. Charlie slid her knife into the heavy set man’s neck, effectively preventing him from calling for help as he bled out into his trachea and aspirated. Monroe put the kid in a sleeper hold until he fell unconscious on the ground. He was the one had decided they needed. Well, it wasn’t so much him they needed as his uniform.

The young private woke to find himself stripped down to his skivvies and shivering as he watched Charlie pull on his khaki jacket.

“I still think it should be me.” Monroe whined.

“Ok, public enemy number one, with your face on posters plastered all over.” Charlie snarked back at him with a raised eyebrow.

“I still don’t like this.”

“Good thing that doesn’t matter.” She sneered back at him teasingly.

Monroe growled. “Ugh. When did you get so…” His attention was caught by movement in his peripheral vision on the right. “Look who has decided to wake up and join us.” He stalked over toward their bound prisoner. Charlie followed.

“Wha… whatever you’re doing… it’s not gonna work.” The Patriot soldier stammered.

“Why don’t you worry a little less about what we’re doing, and a little more about yourself.” Monroe’s voice was predatory. “Do you know who I am?”

The boy looked at him nervously for a few seconds before shaking his head.

Monroe rolled his eyes, then turned to Charlie. “See, I told you those crap posters don’t look anything like me.”

Now Charlie rolled her eyes. “Right. Because you’re soooo much better looking in person.” This was clearly not a new argument, and Charlie was parroting comments Monroe had made back at him sarcastically.

A quick glance at their prisoner told Monroe that the kid was starting to relax in the face of their banter. They couldn’t have that. “You are going to tell me what I want to know, and if what she finds proves you told me the truth, maybe I will show you some mercy.”

“I’m not telling you anything.” The kid tried to muster up more confidence than he had.

“Wrong choice.” Monroe menaced.

The kid tried to keep up the bravado. “You don’t scare me. You’re some nobody that has to have his little girlfriend do his work for him.”

Charlie and Monroe both let out sardonic snorts of laughter that were so similar that it sounded like they’d rehearsed it. They each shot the other a quick surprised and annoyed look before returning their attention to their prisoner. This time it was Charlie that spoke. “Listen, kid. You really have no idea how much shit you have landed in. This isn’t some nobody. This is Sebastian Monroe.” She gave her words a few seconds to sink in. “When he said he’d show you some mercy, he meant that he’d kill you quickly and leave your body in a state where your family will be able to recognize you at your funeral. There’s no way you leave here alive, so you should really consider taking him up on his offer and not pissing him off.”

The soldier was white as a sheet with his mouth hanging open and collecting flies. My work here is done. Charlie thought to herself and turned with a satisfied grin on her face. As she started walking away and out toward the trail that would lead her straight toward the area of woods that the Patriots seemed to be steering everyone away from, she heard Monroe conspiratorially start whispering to the kid he would no doubt have dissected by the time she was back.

“See that? That’s not just some girl. That’s the only thing out there scarier than me. That’s a Matheson whose family was threatened by you khaki wearing ass munches. You’re probably lucky that I’m the one staying behind with you.”

Charlie couldn’t ignore the small swell of pride she felt at Monroe’s description of her. He actually considered her dangerous. Two weeks ago that thought probably would have disgusted her. But they were at war now, and the lives of everyone she cared about were hanging in the balance and depending on her and her new partner. There was no longer any room for mercy or compassion toward her enemies. They were going to be fighting the kind of monsters that had no problem nuking the entire east coast. She needed to become just as terrifying. So, yeah. From him, and in this situation, it was a compliment. It was the compliment she had worked her ass off for a year to hear from Miles, and never actually had. As she walked off into the woods, she convinced herself that hearing it from the only man she’d ever seen be able to fight Miles to a draw felt just as good.

…..

“It’s a giant weapons cache.” Charlie announced as she swung herself up into the wagon.

“The kid said the same thing.” Monroe was sitting in the driver’s seat wiping something off his hands with a rag. The kid was nowhere to be seen.

“I don’t know exactly what they’re planning to do with it all, but this isn’t just their local armory. They’ve got large caliber stuff and explosives. And it looked like they were starting to load it up to move soon.” Charlie recounted what she’d seen as she’d snuck onto the Patriot base.

“We know these ass holes like blowing up whole cities.” Monroe glowered hatefully. “I say we make sure they don’t get a chance to try that shit again.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.” Charlie smiled. “Because I have a plan.”

Monroe rolled his eyes at her unintentional perfect imitation of his former best friend. Then he muttered to himself in a barely audible tone, “Uh huh. ‘Uncle’. Sure. ‘Cause that’s not genetic.”

“I heard that.” Charlie narrowed her eyes at him.

He raised his hands in mock surrender. “Fine. Let’s hear this plan of yours, General Matheson.” Then he grumbled, “We’ll see if you inherited any useful skills from ‘Uncle’ Miles.”

“Still able to hear you.”

He grinned at her and gestured for her to begin explaining her plan.

She sneered at him for a moment, then sighed. “It’s simple. You distract them, and I’ll blow it all up.”

Monroe laughed. “That’s your plan?”

“You got a better one?”

He rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to start tearing into her lack of an actual plan, then stopped. He closed his mouth as he scrunched one eyebrow and looked slightly upward. His gaze was unfocused and he started to slightly tilt his head side to side, as if he was trying to do a difficult math problem in his head. “Go in like Lancaster. That might work.”

“Who’s Lancaster?” Charlie asked, drawing his attention.

“Not who. Where. Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Miles and I captured that town with a small group of Militia in the early days of the Republic. We were massively outnumbered, but we used a bunch of tricks to make it seem like there were more of us than there actually were. We created enough of a distraction that Miles was able to sneak in behind enemy lines and assassinate the town’s leaders.”

Charlie looked appalled at the mention of Miles’s role.

“Kid, you don’t remember the early days of the blackout. We were actually the good guys back then. The self appointed town elders of post-Blackout Lancaster were a bunch of rapey old dudes that enforced some creepy puritanical religious law and even brought back witch trials. Any girl over thirteen that wouldn’t let them have their way with her, in the name of the Lord of course, was burned at the stake as a witch. We did that town a favor making it one of the first additions to the Republic after we claimed Philly.”

Charlie looked confused by all this. She had never imagined the Monroe Militia as a force for good.

“Why am I standing here justifying this shit to you a decade later.” He growled as much at himself as at her. “The important part is how we tricked their militia.”

…..

“Huh. That actually worked.” Charlie mused to herself as she strode purposefully into the Patriot camp. She was still wearing her stolen uniform and trying to act like she belonged in the camp. That was half the battle. Just act like you belong where you are and know what you’re doing, and nine times out of ten no one will even look twice at you.

They’d spent the better part of the evening laying their trap, and in a very un-Matheson-like fashion, it had gone off without a hitch. They’d stealthily laced the forest on the west side of the Patriot camp with booby traps, rigged explosives, and weapons that could be set off relatively remotely using wires, string, and pulleys. Once they started their little fireworks display, two attackers suddenly gave the appearance of twenty or more, and the Patriot forces had gone after the perceived threat in impressive numbers. Bass had led them off further to the west, while Charlie snuck into the camp from the north. He’d lead the Patriots looking for a whole attacking army on a wild goose chase, while she got in, did her thing, then got out of the minimally protected camp.

As she had noticed earlier, the Patriots were clearly mobilizing their camp. They’d loaded virtually all their large caliber toys and explosives into three large wagons for transport. And those wagons were all still clustered together in the middle of them camp near their armory. They had made this just entirely too easy.

“Like shooting fish in a barrel.” Charlie mumbled to herself. She smiled and reconsidered as she walked up to the center wagon. _Like blowing up fish in barrel._ She wedged a stick of dynamite with a very long fuse into a crevice on the underside of the wagon’s frame. She'd found the explosives hidden in one of the former bounty hunters’ bags last night while digging around and looking for dry clothing. Charlie lit the fuse, then she stood, turned, and attempted to casually walk away through the camp.

“Hey! You! What did you just do? Stop right there!” A soldier shouted.

Charlie looked around, acting innocent and confused as she kept walking. Realizing that the soldier had a rifle pointed at her, she stopped. A countdown ticked away in the back of her mind, warning her that she couldn’t stand there for long unless she wanted to get blown to smithereens with the rest of these asshats.

“What were you doing over there?” The guard questioned her as he approached her, rifle raised. Charlie opened her mouth to reply, but she could get a word out, he added, “And who are you? I don’t recognize you?”

“I’m… one of the new recruits.” Charlie hoped the slight pause didn’t give away her lie. The countdown clock in her head was getting perilously low. She needed to get out of there on the double.

“We don’t have any new recruits stationed at this facility.” The man shot back and started to point his weapon at her chest more aggressively.

Charlie rolled her eyes. “And I really don’t have time for any of this.” She reached out, lightning quick, and grabbed the muzzle of his AK, shoving it to an angle that would prevent any bullets’ trajectories from intersecting with her body. Then she kicked out his left knee. As he crumpled to the ground, she twisted the weapon in his hands, using his momentary lapse in grip strength to wrest the gun from him. She brought the stock down hard on his temple before swinging the rifle around into a proper firing position against her shoulder.

This little skirmish attracted attention, and bullets began to fly. Charlie returned fire as she darted for the tree line. If her mental clock was correct, she only had a single digit number of seconds left before the pyrotechnics started. She stopped firing and ran for the trees. Bullets whizzed past her head and she ducked into as tight of a ball as she could while still sprinting. She then registered bullets flying in the other direction. Monroe had doubled back and was laying down covering fire for her retreat. He was positioned about twenty feet into the woods, using the dried up creek bed like a fox hole for cover. As she approached the woods she started flailing her arms to signal as she yelled for him to run or get down.

Charlie was nearly at the small steep embankment when she heard the explosion. The deafening boom hit her a split second before the concussive wave of heat did. She leapt for the ditch, and the force of the blast propelled her at Monroe. They collided more than he caught her, and they rolled together down the bank. As their tumble slowed, he rolled them one more time so that she was on her back underneath him and he was using his body to shield her from the fiery debris that rained down on them. Charlie curled her face into his chest as he ducked his head and covered the back of it with his hands. The cascade of smoldering projectiles waned, then eventually ceased after a long minute.

Slowly, Monroe propped himself up on his elbows and scanned the area for any threats. Charlie relaxed and opened her eyes. She looked up from her back and saw his hawk-like stare raking across their surroundings. When he didn’t identify any immediate sign of danger, he looked down at the body crushed protectively beneath his. Blue eyes met and locked. Normally, Charlie would have flashed an enormous grin at this point, and maybe even whooped a bit in excitement over their success. But this wasn’t just one of Miles’s plans that had gone right, it was hers. And it wasn’t Miles on top of her looking down into her eyes. As their gazes held, Charlie watched the look in Monroe’s eyes darken from concern and excitement to something more primal. She felt it too. In that moment, she didn’t care who he had been, or what he had done before today. He had trusted her, and he’d had her back when she’d needed it. They had risked their lives together and had come out on top. It was a heady sensation, and the feeling was enough to drown out any memories of why it was disgusting and wrong to revel in the connection she was currently sharing with the man on top of her. They understood each other. They were the same. 

His mouth crashed down onto hers, and she let it happen. She shoved her tongue past his lips as he grabbed fistfuls of the hair at her scalp. They sucked and bit and pulled at each other aggressively. There was no thought involved. Their bodies simply needed to prove that they were still alive while all their enemies were not. Eventually they pulled apart to gasp air into their starving lungs. 

“That…” He took a few shaky breaths as he seemed to refocus himself. “…shouldn’t have happened.”

“Probably not.” Charlie pursed her lips, forcing her to breathe heavily through her nose. She didn’t feel nearly as guilty or disgusted about it as she knew she should.

“I’m sorry.” He sounded sincerely apologetic and atypically formal.

“Whatever.” Charlie shrugged. “It’s not like my tongue wasn’t down your throat too. Let’s just swear that Miles and the rest of my family NEVER hear about this, and we’ll call it even.”

“Deal.” He flashed her an almost shy smile.

Charlie tried to ignore the fact that she found his expression to be disarmingly attractive all of a sudden. She shook her head. That shit would not fly. He was Sebastian Monroe, and… She sighed. He was Sebastian Monroe, and that fact didn’t actually bother her all that much anymore. When had that happened?

They both awkwardly got to their feet and dusted themselves off. They looked around, and suddenly their momentary surrender to their post-battle hormone surge was forgotten.

“Ho. Ly. Shit.” Monroe enunciated. Where minutes ago there had been a camp, now there was only a smoking crater the size of a football field.

“That’s a lot bigger than I was expecting.” Charlie said calmly.

“That’s what she said.” The joke had been a mostly automatic subconscious response from Monroe, his conscious brain still awed by the devastation around them.

Charlie shot him a confused look. “Who said what?”

“Never mind.” He shook his head. “They must have had some stronger shit than we thought.”

“That much firepower destroyed… This should put a big dent in whatever their master plan was.” Charlie reasoned.

“I’d hope so.” Monroe smirked, looking very proud of himself.

“It also means that these guys are probably not going to be thrilled with us for destroying their armory and ruining their plans. We should get out of here before anyone comes to see what happened.” Charlie started walking in the direction of where they’d stashed the wagon, peeling off her khaki jacket as she walked.

“Fine.” Monroe whined, clearly wanting to stay and revel in the massive obliteration of his enemy’s camp.

“You coming, or do you wanna stare at the burning corpses a little longer?” Charlie huffed. “Creepy, vengeful, psychopath’s not really a great look on you.”  
That caught his attention. He quickly turned and trotted the few paces to catch up with Charlie. “You sayin’ there are times when you don’t see me as a creepy vengeful psychopath?”

Charlie rolled her eyes and shoved his shoulder roughly enough to make him take a step sideways as they walked. He recovered and returned to hovering just inside her personal space within a few steps. A stupid grin was plastered on his face. Charlie wanted to punch it right off him. She was then aggravated to find that some part of her suddenly wanted to do something else to that infuriating mouth. Again. She chastised herself for developing some kind of Stockholm Syndrome or whatever. But he’d saved her life, more times now than she liked to count. And for better or worse, they actually did work well together. The grudging respect for his abilities that had festered unbidden in her, had morphed into some kind of tenuous trust after spending this long working with him and listening to him unwaveringly tell her truth after inconvenient and unexpected truth.   
Yeah. This will end well. Charlie groaned internally.

They found the wagon where they’d left it. Charlie changed out of the remaining bits of stolen Patriot uniform and back into her jeans, as Monroe untied the horses, and set off. They travelled at a quick, but not excessive pace as darkness fell. The temperature began to drop, but not as badly as the previous night. The horses were given a short rest after a couple of hours, as Charlie and Monroe ate and discussed their plan. A full moon rose in the clear night’s sky, illuminating the tree lined meadow they had stopped in. With the moonlight glaring down on them and not that far left to go on their trip, Charlie and Monroe both agreed that it would be better on all accounts to travel through the night. This way they would get to their destination early in the day instead of around dusk, and they wouldn’t spend another cold night uncomfortably not sleeping well. If they wore out the horses at this point, so be it. They could walk the rest of the way if they needed to.

The horses seemed disappointed as they were harnessed back up and hitched to the wagon. However, they did their job dutifully and plodded along through the night. 

It was mid morning as the unlikely partners spotted a sign that informed them that Willoughby lay only ten miles ahead. They were feeling emboldened by the previous day’s triumph, and uneasy about not knowing what they were about to be thrust into the middle of. As such, they both perched themselves on the wagon like bad asses, letting a confident swagger radiate off them like some kind of post-apocalyptic Bonnie and Clyde. They were nearly home. Nearly to Willoughby, to her family, and to the huge troop of goons calling themselves Patriots and putting out bounties on the people she cared about. Charlie was ready to put a hurting on these Patriots. She’d changed a lot in the last year. If you came after her family, she was still going to do anything she could to save them. But now, she wouldn’t just stop at saving her loved ones, she would make those that threatened them pay dearly. No one knew that like the man that was now at her side instead of at the pointy end of her crossbow. Alone, she was a force to be reckoned with these days. But with the man next to her now fighting at her side… They were going to seriously fuck some shit up. Because every occupation deserves a good resistance.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The End.  
> And now I'll get back to finishing Variables. It's almost there. It's not abandoned, I swear. It's just freaking enormous now, and I'm waiting until it's all done to post any of it.


End file.
